FFXIII-2

[Spira]

XIII definitely has its strong suits.. but I wouldn't call them very prominent or memorable.
to put things in a certain perspective. XIII has some of the most mind-blowing action packed FMV of most games.. something which people enjoy in the spur of the moment, but not many people remember.. partly because it isn't really that special anymore - think Transformers 3. too much of a good thing is bad. And people already expect that from an FF game.

When you do a series comparison, with each subsequent entry in the game naturally outdoing the previous one, and with them pushing the envelope in terms of game presentation and story delivery, we've really come to a point where there isn't anything that really hasn't been tried.

so I think a lot of it has to do with this generation's gamers. our expectations are so much higher these days, and our attention span only so limited because we can easily move on to something else that we want in an instant. just as gaming has evolved, gamers have too and there's a lot more instant gratification at play. no matter how good a game may be, its acknowledgement will last for only a fleeting moment, or it will just be taken entirely for granted.

[Lonely]

I'm fine with either system, provided that there are good reasons behind it. I.e. don't pull an Amarant on me, who had zero reasons to join the party. Why didn't they give me Beatrix instead? I mean, isn't she supposed to protect Garnet? She was a far better character yet she didn't get to join as a permanent party member over someone who added nothing to the plot.
I hope I'm not the only one who got really pissed about that.

It was more about his job rather than story reasoning, he was the monk for the party while Steiner was the knight/warrior/sword person already, IX went very traditional compared to 7/8 open characters and was more of a tribute title to the series with each characters progression being based around traditional jobs.

XIII definitely has its strong suits.. but I wouldn't call them very prominent or memorable.

Its hard for games to become instantly prominent or memorable the older you get but you know with time people are going to hold XIII as highly as some people today remember games like Chrono Trigger or older FF Titles.

[Appie]

As a little heads up for the people who pre-ordered it at Amazon. I downloaded the Omega fight since it was free on the JP store, but it doesn't look like a walk in the park. My characters have 3 jobs 40+, though my monsters are lagging a little behind on that, but besides barely surviving his spam with 2 sentinels at the start, I'm not scratching it much either lol. Maybe it scales towards my level, but if I were you, I wouldn't expect adding Omega to your pokemon when you start up the game the first time XD

[Tyrath]

Don't mind too much. But it's kinda silly for a pre-order bonus to be something you can't get from the start

[Gokulo]

It would actually be kinda lame to have Omega from the start too though :<

[Nevex]

It was more about his job rather than story reasoning, he was the monk for the party while Steiner was the knight/warrior/sword person already, IX went very traditional compared to 7/8 open characters and was more of a tribute title to the series with each characters progression being based around traditional jobs.

We did get two white mage/summoners though. Just like they differentiated Eiko from Garnet by giving her the superior white magic and defense-oriented summons, they could have differentiated Beatrix from Steiner somehow.
And the monk/ninja skills could have been given to Zidane instead of his atrocious skillset.

Or just give us 9 characters and give Amarant actual plot value... they did have choices but they just decided to be lazy on that part imo.
Even Lani would have been better than him (warrior/black mage chick? Hell yeah).

[Tyrath]

I still think its nice to have some extra characters that aren't necessarily super tied into the story

[Vincento]

I still think its nice to have some extra characters that aren't necessarily super tied into the story

I agree with this, random chars to look forward to getting at some point in the story. I couldn't have cared less that Amarant wasn't that big in the story - I still found him cooler than most of the chars in XIII though lol.

[Hyan]

I still think its nice to have some extra characters that aren't necessarily super tied into the story

It's bullshit that they have to compete with the rest of the cast for a spot in the party.

I always hated that crap.

[Lucavi]

I have to agree with Lonely. It seems that the fans are way more vocal now compared to ten or so years ago.
They get all up in arms when they hear Crazy Chocobo and act like a theme that they have listened for hundreds of times between its 30 or so variations has been ruined forever, they automatically associate the lack of traditional towns to a crap game, they get pissed when summons don't instant-KO any enemy in the game, but they're totally fine with random party members who have no plot value, utterly broken and abusable battle systems that kill any challenge and cringe-worthy mis-translations that seem to be taken straight from Google translate.

Both old and new FFs have their flaws, but the fanbase seems to be way more forgiving with the former category because they they were a lot less nitpicky when they played them. I doubt that 12-15 year old kids were this hypercritical back then, I certainly wasn't.

Two major reasons come to mind for this:

1) Everyone has access to the internet and knows all about forums, and as a result, everyone has a voice that they don't mind sharing.
2) Ten years ago, SE hadn't had a lot of "failures" on their hands, especially with actual games. You had the Spirits Within, but again, that wasn't a game. What you did have were a bunch of classics that everyone was still obsessed about, like FFVII, FFIX and FFT, and people weren't nearly as jaded at SE as they are now. That was ten less years of SE doing the exact same thing over and over again, and very few people would have called them out on it seriously. You also didn't have SE dabbling in online games (that people knew about -- XI was still in development, essentially), so there wasn't a bitterness that stemmed from that.

Flash forward today and its basically no secret that SE is extremely rigid and does not like to change or rock the boat. People are tired of it after so long and with everyone loving to share their opinion, you get this.

[Lordender]

I personally enjoyed 12 way more than I did 13 because of the free roam, you could do hunts, hunt rare items in chests right from the get-go, there was just a ton more to do. Now I did enjoy the characters of 13(outside of Vanille) more but going strictly by the game itself I enjoyed 12 a hell of a lot more. Don't get me wrong, 13's battle system was cool but only near the end of the game when characters are @ full potential and have all roles + paradigms available but 12's battle system(to me) was a lot more consistent because I didn't have to wait until I beat the game to really experience it to the full potential. I just enjoyed 12 so much more, I was actually so surprised at how much more I liked 12 than 13 when I finished 13.

[Crab_Cake]

@Nevex and @Lonely - I agree for the most part but the negativity is somewhat understandable.

Lets talk about gameplay again.

Spoiler: show

One problem is definitely the pacing and gameplay. The paradigm system is great but it feels forced and tacked on for most of the game - use a DD role, then heal role, then DD again and that's basically it for most of the game. Not very exciting IMO.

You'd had to enjoy to really get into the story if you want to enjoy the game. While professional reviewers praised the gameplay, most average players found the gameplay and battle system boring for most of the game due to its limits early on.

Also the grind and difficulty spikes really abruptly once you get to Gran Pulse, then again in Chapter 12 and 13. It literally takes 30-60+(depending on luck and how many weapons you want) hours to get enough gil and/or ingredients to obtain tier 3 weapons (also a problem of FFXII if you didn't abuse the numerous glitches that made things more bearable) while in nearly every other FF game it takes no more than maybe 5-10 hours.

Each battle in chapter 12+ will probably take 2-3 minutes without maxed out crystarium and gear, 1-1.5 minutes with maxed out (I grinded until tier 3 weapons before going to Eden). It can become really tedious.

Finally the battle system only real shines in really hard battles where you need to fully take advantage of paradigm shifts (which usually only happens in post game or optional bosses/marks. The final mark in the titan trial is really fun to fight if you're only at tier 9 crystarium). That's why it would have been better for the regular enemies to be much easier while the bosses harder.

tl;dr - The gameplay/battle system and difficulty scaling could have been much better. Basically most of the game was dull gameplay then huge grind (Gran Pulse) before getting into the actually fun stuff (facing the later marks). Other FFs had much better scaling and provided more options to the players much earlier on.

Lets talk about the story now. While some did find the story good (I know most here do), a lot disliked the fact that most characters were being a bit too over dramatic (it was forced at times), the fact that cast's options were limited from the very beginning (they were lead by Barthandelus), and the fact the story had a lot of unexplained stuff (like white brands).

Character options being limited (being lead by Barthandelus):

Spoiler: show

Not only was the game a bit linear but the story too. The character really had limited options throughout the entire game.

1. The characters don't know how to get rid of their brands (or avoid turning Cie'th) without completing their Focus.

2. None of the party members knew who the villain was (Barthandelus) until Chapter 9 which means they don't know what they're supposed to be doing. Lightning just went after the fal'Cie Eden (which would be "lights out Cocoon" as pointed by Sazh) and the Sanctum. Vanille to split up because she doesn't want to risk more hurt and thus her "run away" phase.

Basically it is Barthandelus/Dysley who leads them throughout the game. Capturing Vanille + Sazh then using them to draw out the others then further leading them to the rest of the events in the end of the game.

A lot of the things where the characters had choices happened off screen (Fang getting the help of Cid Raines for example).

Now I was fine with that but I can understand some not liking that type of story (where the villain ironically does most of the work for the main characters, while the main characters themselves aren't able to really do much).

Characters overreacting and being overdramatic

Spoiler: show

Lightning being mad at Snow, Hope towards Snow, then later Sazh towards Vanille, etc was the thing for most of the game. Only reasonable one is Lightning and Snow (also interestingly the only one with apologizes involved), the rest are a bit forced. See this (Motomu Toriyama wanted things to be dramatic.)

For example, lets talk about Vanille - One thing SE did (if you carefully examine her choices and what actually happened) was make Vanille's choices actually reasonable (Fang was a huge part of why). The whole lying thing was needed because Fang was determined to save Vanille (complete their Focus) which Vanille disagreed with.

However the game and other character likes to make a big deal out of this and makes it seem like her actions are bad. One example is the Sazh + Vanille scene. Problem with the scene is that the video he was shown clearly shows that Vanille didn't do anything wrong (it was Fang who provoked the fal'Cie) but yet he overreacts in that scene.

Basically some of the stuff can be off putting and make characters seem whiny.

Finally, the focus on Vanille. From a story perspective, Vanille was basically the main character (well they are all but the story focuses on her the most) considering: 1. The story focuses on her (and her conflicts) the most. 2. Her conflicts and her goal/desire to resolve her conflicts are the most prominent out of the others (audience can identify or empathize with the most).

The problem is I know a lot were put off by Vanille (even though, IMO, she had an awesome voice). The fact that she was a big part of the story probably didn't help them like FFXIII.

Overall, the negativity is somewhat understandable.

[Lucavi]

She had an orgasm voice and you know it. It was embarrassing to play through her parts of the story (early on, when she groaned through every attack or hit, but she somehow stopped later in the game) with the volume turned up. I remember people thinking I was watching a shitty porn in the next room, which offended my sensibilities, as I only watch the highest of quality porn, and always with the goddamn sound off.

[Lonely]

Seems more like people went out of there way to find the negatives though.

[Burningthought]

Stuff.

Man you guys really know how to beat a dead horse.

[Ayn]

In the end I see the cast of FFXIII as a whole as the best in the series for this reason alone and I'll be sad if the reason FFXIII-2 doesn't feature them as much because pissed off fans didn't want them back.

You know, you do make a point about the cohesion of the cast of 13. I think one of my main misgivings is that one of the primary objectives was to save a character that I didn't really give a shit about. I'm having a hard time putting it into words.. I mean I actually liked that many of them reacted as normal people would in that situation (gave them some authenticity).. maybe that's what makes me grumpy about 13-2. I didn't really like Serah as a character, and would've loved if they'd expanded on -any- of the existing characters from 13 a little more.

I mentioned it in something I posted on Zealot's blog (which I think someone took the wrong way), my biggest misgiving about 13 wasn't so much what everyone else seems to hate, but the feeling that it really could've been so much more, and we got teasers of that especially in Chapter 12.

The linearity and lack of towns didn't bother me quite as much. I mean heck, your characters were basically fugitives on the run, so it kinda made sense.

[Lordender]

She had an orgasm voice and you know it. It was embarrassing to play through her parts of the story (early on, when she groaned through every attack or hit, but she somehow stopped later in the game) with the volume turned up. I remember people thinking I was watching a shitty porn in the next room, which offended my sensibilities, as I only watch the highest of quality porn, and always with the goddamn sound off.

Haha she says she's like that even IRL

[Ayn]

Holy shit, hearing her talk about CA is pretty spot on with my impression about the place after living here. As much as Vanille annoyed me at times, her VA seems cool as hell as a person.

[miokomioko]

Yeah, she's pretty damn level-headed in contrast to the personality(ies) she plays. I could hang out with (bang) her.

[Lucavi]

Seems more like people went out of there way to find the negatives though.

No different than how fanboys and white knights go out of their way to find all the positives (even false positives) when defending a game. Two sides of the same shitty coin.

Edit: Yeah, she does sound like she's a screamer in the sack. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose. What annoys me is that they actually typecast the role that way. "Bright, bubbily and believes in sunshine and raindrops." Ugh.